


i know that you don't see it (but all we need is daylight)

by MotherKarizma



Series: here comes the sun [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Orphan Peter Parker, Past Drug Addiction, Peter Parker Gets a Hug, Peter Parker Has Issues, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Sad Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, completed series, peter is Struggling™ to adjust, tony is such a good dad uwu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:02:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22762918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MotherKarizma/pseuds/MotherKarizma
Summary: Peter was supposed to feel happy.In the dark of the common room at midnight with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, knees tucked against his chest and eyes locked blank on the cityscape below, Peter felt nothing.The quieting. The decrescendo. The fall. The comedown -It always found him.-----Peter can't sleep. Luckily, neither can Tony.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: here comes the sun [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1633516
Comments: 36
Kudos: 1027
Collections: The Best Irondad/Spiderson Fics, The Best Peter Parker Whump Fics, ellie marvel fics - read





	i know that you don't see it (but all we need is daylight)

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE TO NEW READERS: this is the third work in a 12-part series! i highly recommend reading the previous works first, then returning to this one, as this work makes little to no sense as a stand-alone.
> 
> hey guys! this is a shorter one - consider it an interlude before the action picks back up.
> 
> enjoy!
> 
> [young guns - daylight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2zgh9GTscI)  
> \\\you try to move on, i know  
> you're caught between the darkness and the dawn  
> you are not alone  
> i know that you don't see it  
> but all we need is daylight//

Peter was supposed to feel happy.

In the dark of the common room at midnight with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, knees tucked against his chest and eyes locked blank on the cityscape below, Peter felt nothing.

The quieting. The decrescendo. The fall. The comedown -

It always found him.

* * *

"Penny for your thoughts?"

Peter gasped. The blanket slipped off his shoulders as he turned, and he grappled to hold onto it. Mister Stark stood by the elevator, looking at him with a raised brow, wiping grime from his hands with a cloth. He'd just come from the lab, if the smear of oil on his temple was any indication.

"Oh - hey." Peter forced a smile that he was positive didn't reach his eyes. "Sorry. I can go back to my room, I know it's late-"

He was already moving to stand as he spoke, but Tony gestured at him with some vague, semi-wave, as if shooing his apology away. "You live here, kid. It's not like you have a bedtime. Don't cut your existential brooding short on my account."

"I'm - I'm not _brooding_." The words _I'm not a kid_ also rested on his tongue but he swallowed them back. It would be awfully hypocritical of him to knock the nickname, considering he'd stubbornly persisted with the Mister Stark's and sir's. "I'm just..."

Tony smirked. "Sitting alone in the dark, contemplating life? Yeah. That's called _brooding_."

"I prefer solitary introspection. Cardio for the brain."

"Even, dare I say, self-care?"

"See? You get me, Mister Stark."

Tony scoffed and rolled his eyes. Peter smiled more genuinely. This part of living in the Tower, at least - the banter, the careful deflection, the affectionate ribbing - was not entirely lost on him. Even with all the time he'd spent watching civil society from afar rather than participating, Peter's wit hadn't dulled. For that, he was grateful. It seemed to be Tony's preferred method of communication. In moments like this, Peter felt connected. Understood. Seen. Maybe even marginally less alone. The spark in Tony's eyes whenever they had these types of exchanges told Peter he felt the same way.

If only everyone in the Tower was so easy to bond with.

"If mutual sulking is what you call 'getting you,' then sure." Tony approached and nudged Peter's foot where it rested on the couch. "I'm gonna sit here, so you move the leg."

Peter complied, tugging the excess blanket that pooled over the rest of the couch into his lap. "Iron Man sulks?"

"Uh, no. Iron Man is a cultural icon to five year olds everywhere and has no concept of sulking. That would set a terrible example. He eats all his vegetables and listens to his parents, too." Tony fell heavily onto the spot Peter had cleared and tilted his head. "Tony Stark, on the other hand..."

Peter shrugged half-heartedly. "I'm not really...sulking, either. I'm not, like, sad or anything. Just - thinking. You know?"

Tony locked eyes with him, face warm with an emotion Peter couldn't quite place. "I know. What are you thinking about?"

Peter breathed in deep, exhaled shakily, swallowed hard. He'd hoped that question wouldn't come. He hated lying to Tony. "Uh, just..."

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, kid. Totally up to you whether this turns into Sharing Circle Time. It just helps sometimes, to get it off your chest. Rhodey's been on the receiving end of many a nonsensical rant."

"My family," Peter said before he could change his mind, and the admission burned his throat like acid. "I miss them."

"Where are they?"

"They're dead."

Tony sucked in a sharp breath. "Shit, Pete. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked."

"No, no, it's fine. You - I wanted to tell you. It helps, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it does, sometimes. Do you want to tell me about them?"

"They were..." Peter laughed quietly, humorlessly, tilting his head back to look up at the ceiling as if gravity would help keep the welling tears in his eyes where they belonged. "They were the best. Seriously, the best people ever. I, uh, don't really remember my parents. I was only four when they died. Plane crash. But my aunt and uncle raised me, and they always told me how much my parents loved me. And I remember a few things. Like, my mom wore lavender perfume and my dad laughed funny, so. So, yeah."

Tony gave him a moment to collect himself before gently prodding him onward. "And your aunt and uncle? What were they like?"

"Ben and May - Ben was my dad's brother. They were funny. And really nice. Not just to me, but to everyone. May was always doing things for people, helping them out and stuff. Ben was really good at making people laugh when they didn't feel like laughing but kind of needed it. When - when they died, I was..."

"Pete." Tony laid a firm hand on his shoulder. "You don't have to tell me about that. Not if you don't want to."

"I want to," Peter said, even though he wasn't entirely sure he did. He'd never told anyone these things and, as much as the memories hurt to relive aloud, his chest felt a little lighter with each word, his mind a little clearer. "I was fifteen when they died. Somebody broke into the apartment with a gun while they were asleep."

"Kid..."

"They thought I was home. I had my powers by then and I was out doing Spider-Man stuff, but they thought I was asleep in my bed. When they died - when they died, they must have thought I was about to die, too. They didn't know. About Spider-Man, that I was okay, that I wasn't dying with them. They never knew. I came home and their safe had been emptied and they were just...dead."

At some point, his words grew thicker with emotion. Peter sniffled. He leaned down to lay his head on Tony's shoulder, hoping he wouldn't mind a few teardrops on that rag of a lab T-shirt, because he needed to ground himself and this - holding onto Tony for dear life - was the only way he knew how.

At least, it was the only way he knew how to ground himself without heroin, which wasn't much of an option anymore.

Tony didn't seem to mind his messy emotions in the slightest. He wrapped his arm around Peter and pulled him closer, chin resting atop his head. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

Peter said reflexively, "It's okay."

"It's not okay. You were too young to have to deal with that. That kind of shit's enough to scar anybody, let alone a fifteen year old."

"You've seen worse. You've seen people die."

"That doesn't mean anything. You don't have to compare your pain, PJs, not to mine and not to anybody else's. Other people's suffering doesn't minimize your suffering. Your feelings matter. You understand that? They matter."

"I don't think I want to talk anymore," Peter whispered into Tony's shirt. "I think I'm done talking."

Tony squeezed him tight and whispered back, "Okay."

Sure, there were a million other things Peter could tell him about. He could tell him what a joke the foster system was and about how he'd bounced from terrible home to terrible home. He could tell him how he'd willfully lost contact with his only two friends because they were trying too hard to rescue him from the ocean of his grief and, at the time, he'd thought it might be less painful to just drown. He could tell him how he used to be the top of his class, once upon a time, and now he didn't even have a high school diploma; how he'd aged out of the foster system, become suddenly and inexplicably homeless, and how school had fallen to the very bottom of his priority list.

He could tell him about the first time he'd used heroin, how great it made him feel, how quickly that euphoria had turned into despair. He could tell him that he used to be a prostitute - a little fact that Tony still wasn't privy to, and if he ever wondered how Peter had paid to feed his habit, he hadn't asked.

He could tell him a lot of things. A lot of dark, scary, painful things.

But Tony didn't need to hear about those things to understand, and Peter didn't need to share them to feel understood. This - a companionable silence, curled up on the couch like a child next to the closest thing he'd had to a true parental figure in years - was more than enough. This was recovery. This was rest.

So much so, in fact, that Peter realized some time later the way his eyes were fluttering, limbs growing heavier as sleep finally washed over him.

"Sorry," he mumbled groggily and began to pull away. "I'll go to my room-"

Tony pulled him back. "You'll stay right here."

"M'kay."

Peter did.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you guys for continuing to follow this series! if you liked the third installment, please consider leaving a comment below!
> 
> as always, you can find me on tumblr under the same username


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